Imagine that a person you love dearly develops a mental disorder, such as schizophrenia. In such a situation you want to help him, so you want him to tell you what he has been through. Even if he thinks you will be scared and run away at first, then he starts trusting you and telling you. But if you listen to his delusional, after a while you really start to get scared and “Does it touch me too? Am I going crazy now?

Of course, this situation does not apply to everyone, but there are many myths that can happen to anyone and there are many myths that need to be cleared up on this topic. Psychology and psychiatry have been investigating the causes of each disorder for years. Each disorder has its own dynamics, and no disorder arises for a single reason, as is commonly believed.

Disorders do not have one cause!

The subject of social sciences is often man and his behavior. Ethically, it’s difficult to conduct ’cause-effect’ research in humans, since you can’t put a human in a lab and examine it like a mouse. You can do more descriptive, ie relational, research. So instead of saying “therefore” you say there could be a connection between this and that. “So what does that matter?” If you say so, it actually matters a lot.

You can’t control all of a person’s variables in a survey you do. Even if you think you have mastered all the variables, the person participating in the experiment may become bored with the experiment and remember the answers to the questions. I mean, the same goes for mental disorders. When investigating the condition, you often don’t know if it’s due to a deficiency of a neurotransmitter in the brain, or the lack of gray matter in the brain, or if it’s a consequence, genetic factors, or environmental factors. So you can only talk about probabilities.

Don’t worry, just because you have it in your family doesn’t mean you have to have it!

Research has been conducted for years into how mental disorders are transmitted through heredity. These studies are so serious that even more than 40 years of research has been done on families, on twins (identical twins, fraternal twins), adopted children. Some diseases, such as schizophrenia, are thought to be hereditary. But even if you are genetically predisposed to a disease, it may never occur due to the favorable environmental conditions you are in.

There are also diseases caused by functional disorders in the brain.

Brain imaging studies have progressed with the development of technology. Magnetic Resonance (MR), Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Such imaging techniques provide information about structural and functional disorders in the brain that can lead to mental disorders.

But the important thing here is, “Is it because these disorders are experienced because there are changes in the brain, or are these changes in the brain because these disorders already exist?” is the answer to the question. The answer to this question is not known at this stage. The same goes for neurotransmitters in the brain such as dopamine, glutamate, serotonin and GABA. For example, in depression, the patient’s serotonin level is known to be low and attempts are made to increase it with the antidepressants given, which is good for the client. But is low serotonin the sole cause of the condition, or is it a consequence?

Events that happen to us can trigger the disorder.

Events that happen to us in the first years of life can cause certain disorders, such as depression. Being a child born as a result of an unwanted pregnancy, the mother’s depression during pregnancy, extraordinary events in the mother’s womb (such as war, harsh weather) schizophrenia and depression It has been found to increase the risk of developing conditions such as

Your personality can cause certain disorders in you.

There are personality disorders defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th Revision, DSM-5. Although not as serious as personality disorders, there are personality types with the same characteristics. These personality types can cause disorders such as bipolar disorder.

Finally, we also learn about some disorders.

Videos of Japanese people picking up rubbish after matches went viral in recent days. In some cultures, families; For example, attention is paid to strictness, rules and order. Although there is no clear data on this, disorders such as anxiety, phobias and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) are believed to be caused in children who grow up with this culture.

In the Little Albert experiment, which showed that phobias are formed through learning, a 9-month-old baby learned a fear of furry animals. Because of this and similar experiments, some mental disorders are thought to be the result of learning in this way.

Remark: While there are factors such as the occurrence of traumatic events, your genetic predisposition to disorders, the risk of these disorders decreases when you are in a positive family environment.

• Sources: Mental Health and Disorders – Orhan Öztürk, Istanbul Bosphorus Institute, DSM-5